


Believer

by Asukachan07



Series: WestAllen AUs [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fan theory, Post S3E22, Season/Series 03, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 00:09:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20611664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asukachan07/pseuds/Asukachan07
Summary: A different take on Savitar's origin. Follows immediately after Savitar takes Iris from Earth-2 in s3e22.





	Believer

**Author's Note:**

> Found this in my drafts file and thought it would be nice to post it before my laptop crashes.
> 
> Unbeta'd, sorry for the mistakes.

When Iris felt the ground under her feet again, she kept her eyes closed and immediately dropped her head in both her hands, just in time to muffle the sob that escaped her throat.

This was it. She was going to die.

At least Barry would have the video she’d recorded. Watching the video Barry had recorded of Eddie had helped her find closure when she’d still be grieving, so Iris hoped that Barry would find solace knowing that she died thinking of herself as Iris West-Allen, as his wife.

After a few minutes of crying as quietly as she could, the reporter took a moment to check her surroundings. The place was pitch dark, so she used her hands to find a wall and reach for light switches.

Knowing where she was wouldn’t help anything but her curiosity. Iris had no tracking device on her, as the team had anticipated Savitar hacking their system to find her. Iris still wondered how he’d known to look for her on Earth-2.

When she flipped the first switch she encountered, Iris blinked at the bright lights reflected on the ostentatiously locked metal door Savitar had brought her through. She tried to open it anyway, and the urge to cry returned when the handle didn’t give an inch.

She took a deep breath to keep herself together and was surprised by the pleasant scent that reached her nose. She had imagined Savitar’s hiding place being an abandoned and decrepit place, but clearly she’d been mistaken.

The young woman barely contained the gasp she let out at the sight that welcomed her as she turned towards the rest of the room. 

The small space she’d thought constituted the entirety of her cell was actually a landing overlooking what she could only describe as a five-star hotel suite.

A crystal chandelier was glinting across the dark-wood balustrade she leaned against to gaze below.

The tall off-white walls were lined with gold, and right underneath Iris a sleek charcoal couch was set on top of a pale rug which contrasted beautifully with the mahogany hardwood floor. The surrounding armchairs were of a paler gray and the side and coffee tables were made of glass with golden frames and legs.

Lifting her head back up, Iris noted that the ceiling-high windows occupying the wall opposite to the locked door were sealed. The curtains half-drawn over them were more bronze than gold, but tastefully complemented the rest of the living room.

Closing her dropped jaw, Iris glanced around her immediate space, and noticed a pair of slippers by the first step of the staircase leading downstairs.

As she balanced on the balustrade to remove her boots, the reporter wondered why her killer would bring her to such a luxurious place. Was it because deep down, Savitar was still Barry, and he wanted her to spend her last moments surrounded by beauty?

Coming down the stairs, the young woman peered at the adjacent kitchen and dining room. The marble floor and granite countertops reflected her hesitating form, and she settled on a high chair at the dark-wood bar by the sink.

She inspected the bottled water for holes before remembering that Savitar planned on stabbing her, not poisoning her.

The gust of wind that lifted her hair as she took her last gulp of water almost made her choke.

Slowly lowering the bottle on the bar, Iris turned her head to glance at Savitar.

She’d seen it in the dark, but was startled anew by the scars and discolored eye on the right side of his face.

What had happened to him?

She almost dismissed the question, thinking that it wouldn’t help her in any way, but then judged that she had nothing to lose at this point.

“How did you get hurt?” she asked, letting go of the bottle to trace the right side of her own face with her knuckles.

Savitar’s eyes followed the movement before he froze and glared at her without answering.

Unwilling to show him her fear, Iris stared back, going as far as to look him up and down.

He looked...good, scars aside. Iris had always found that black suited Barry, and it showed on his time remnant. Savitar carried himself with less confidence than Barry though, his shoulders drooping slightly. 

When Iris looked back to her captor’s face, she was shocked by the softness reflected in his mismatched eyes, but it quickly disappeared as the speedster looked at her with a sneer.

What was he doing, sending her so many mixed signals?

A beep made both of them looked down at his left wrist. Savitar frowned at it for a second before his eyes widened.

“Cisco,” he whispered before disappearing in...well, a flash.

Iris sat there for a while, wondering if it was worth trying to escape. After all, the speedster could come back any second, and no head start would give her an advantage.

Then what? Was she giving up on life? Would she just wait for her executioner to announce when it was time to go?

Heck no.

Hopping off the chair, Iris explored the rest of the suite. She marvelled at the walk-in closet in the master bedroom, lamented the missed opportunity to try out the large bathtub, sighed in disappointment when an unlocked door led to a guest bathroom rather than an exit.

_ Come on, West, come on, think!  _ she shouted internally as she faced the sealed windows.

She removed her jacket and unbuckled her belt when she saw that only simple wooden panels were separating her from the ceiling-high windows, from her path to freedom. The windows were nailed on the  _ inside. _

With as much patience as she could muster, the journalist unscrewed one, then two, then three nails with the prong of her belt buckle—she’d specifically bought that belt because she’d jokingly thought that the prong could come in handy in case she had to repair something in the loft while Barry was battling criminals and she couldn’t find the toolbox her father had gifted them.

Just when she dropped the belt to forcefully tear the first panel away from the windows—how long had she been there? Twenty minutes? Thirty?—Iris heard the familiar woosh of a close-by speedster.

“What are you doing?” Barry’s voice almost shouted with alarm.

Wondering for the thousandth time how Barry’s time remnant had come to hate her so much, the journalist glared at him from over her shoulder, keeping her hands on the piece of wood.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” she dared talk back before pulling the panel with all her strength—which was probably above her average strength because of the adrenaline coursing through her veins—and throwing it at Savitar, hoping against all odds that he would be too surprised to dodge it.

The speedster caught the piece of wood, of course, and blinked at it before gaping at Iris.

“You really thought that would work?” he asked her in disbelief.

“Had to try, right?” she replied with a slow shrug.

At least she’d tried. She could go down with her head high knowing that she’d given her best to change fate.

Another beep of Savitar’s watch made her groan.

“What now?” she asked with irritation.

Savitar stared at his lifted arm for a while. It was definitely more than a minute.

“This is it,” he whispered cryptically.

“What?” Iris asked, half-curious half-frustrated by the interruption.

Savitar’s eyes snapped up to her, and she tensed.

But after a few seconds, she noted that his gaze wasn’t cruel or cold or detached like before.

If anything, relief was shining in his teary eyes.

Tears?

“I did it,” the time remnant whispered again as he walked backwards, his gaze never leaving her, until he stumbled into an armchair.

“I did it!” he said more clearly with a smile this time, and god he looked so much like Barry that Iris’ clueless body almost moved towards him to share the joy.

Well, her body wasn’t alone being clueless.

“What exactly did you do?” she chanced the question, though she didn’t expect any answer.

“Iris,” he said quietly, and a tear did trickle down his cheek.

She stood there, frozen, unsure what to do.

For weeks, she’d thought that he wanted to kill her. Just an hour ago, she’d seen him hurt Wally and threaten to kill her in front of everyone before killing them in turn.

So why did he look and sound so happy to see her  _ now _ ?

“I don’t understand,” Iris admitted out loud.

“I’m so sorry,” the time remnant said as he stood back up, but remained where he was when Iris took a step back.

He had  _ no right _ to look hurt at her rejection!

“I had to make sure everything was the same for as long as possible!” he told her, waving his hand at her. “I didn’t think it would be possible, but look! You even wore the same clothes.”

“You’re not making sense and even if you were, I wouldn’t believe a word coming out of your mouth,” Iris threw at him as she inched around him.

“I can explain everything,  _ please _ Iris,” the disfigured speedster pleaded.

Was it an act to make her drop her guard? But he didn’t need her to drop her guard, he was fast enough to drag her to Infantino Street and kill her in front of Barry.

_ Barry! _

_ That’s not my name! _

“What’s your name?” the reporter asked on a hunch.

“You can call me Barry,” Savitar answered with a quick nod. “I had to say that to stay true to the timeline—”

“Wait, wait!” Iris demanded, raising her hands with her palms facing him.

She was so confused, and bringing up the whole timeline was not helping.

“Start from the beginning,” she requested slowly, gauging his reaction.

He frowned slightly, the way Barry did when he debated where to start a lengthy scientific explanation.

“Start from the moment you were created,” Iris suggested apprehensively. “You’re a time remnant, right?”

“Barry needed help to defeat Savitar,” her captor started right away, almost tripping over his words, “but Savitar was too fast, even when we fought them together. He killed the others, threw me into the Speed Force...”

His animated face fell as he trailed off, and Iris’ heart broke at the forlorn expression he gave her.

“It took me months to get out,” he informed her, “in real time, I mean. To me it felt like years. Without...Without you to get me out, it was hard to stay focused, to understand that I wasn’t even supposed to be there. I saw so many terrible things, from the past, re-lived my parents’ death—it was awful.”

The image of a recently traumatized Wally came to Iris’ mind and she nodded in sympathy.

“When I got out...Nobody was at S.T.A.R. Labs, except Barry who was in the time vault. He was so broken, we both were, and I just wanted the pain to  _ end! _ ”

“So you became Savitar?” Iris asked, feeling dumb.

She could imagine this version of Barry giving into the darkness that had been lurking around him ever since Eobard Thawne had murdered his mother, but she still didn’t grasp how he’d turned into the very enemy he was supposed to fight. 

How he’d turned into someone who’d want to kill  _ her _ .

“No, not at first,” the time remnant replied. “I wanted to go back in time, change your fate—”

“Barry!” she chided immediately.

“I know,” he said, shaking his head guiltily. “I knew that changing the timeline, after Flashpoint, was asking for another catastrophe, but what could be worse than  _ losing you _ ?”

His voice had broken on ‘you’, and Iris took a few deep breaths to keep her tears at bay.

“I told Joe and Cisco,” Barry’s future time remnant resumed wit a shaky voice, “after all, they weren’t doing so well either: Wally was in a permanent catatonic state, Cisco had lost the use of his hands… I thought they’d be happy about the idea.”

Iris guessed from the snarl that replace the sadness on his face that things didn’t go as planned.

“Instead they told me to ‘go away’ that I wasn’t even the real Barry, that I had no right meddling with their lives. And they warned Barry so he’d block the access to the pipeline.”

The young woman felt a pang in her chest, imagining how lonely this version of Barry must have been, still grieving his Iris, then getting lost in the Speed Force, finally coming out of it only to have everyone he knew reject him.

“But when Barry finally told me how he’d defeated Savitar,” the time remnant told her, his voice picking back its enthusiasm, “with the Speed Force Bazooka that Tracey Brand had created, I had an idea.”

“What was it?” she asked to show her interest, which was genuine.

“Going back in time and changing everything was a stupid idea, I’d realized that,” he digressed a bit. “So I thought that, if I truly wanted to save you without disturbing the space-time continuum too much… All I had to do was to make sure that everything happened exactly like it had, until the very day of your death.”

Iris heard herself gasp as understanding dawned on her.

“You replaced Savitar to sneak back in the past without changing the timeline,” she concluded.

“It was easy to find him in the Speed Force,” future Barry’s time remnant confessed. “It almost felt like the Speed Force itself was guiding me. It certainly didn’t intervene when two speedsters fought to the death right under its nose.”

Iris’ heart dropped in her stomach.

“You...you killed the real Savitar?” she stuttered.

The journalist didn’t know why she was surprised. Though he hadn’t directly killed anyone in this timeline, he had ruined many lives and caused people to lose their lives by giving them powers.

“It was self-defense,” the time remnant told her quietly as he indicated his burned face, “but it doesn’t matter. The things I have done to change fate… I don’t regret them, Iris, I’d do them all over again to have you standing here,  _ alive _ , past the time you were supposed to be killed.”

Ah. That was what the second beep had been for.

“You mentioned Cisco when your watch beeped the first time,” she recalled out loud.

“Cisco got his hands frozen by Killer Frost around the time of your death,” he informed her with a tilted nod. “I didn’t want to intervene until the last minute. Dr. Tannhausser is close to figuring out a cure for Cailtin, but she was supposed to disappear for years so I let Killer Frost run away.”

“Caitlin’s mom is working on a cure?” Iris asked, surprised.

She remembered Caitlin mentioning visiting her mother a few times, but she’d stopped after an incident with Killer Frost.

“For what it’s worth, me creating Flashpoint didn’t cause Caitlin to develop powers,” the time remnant pointed out. “Caitlin’s father, knowingly or not, modified her DNA when she was a child. Killer Frost would have emerged whether or not I had messed up with the timeline.”

“That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t help her!” Iris objected vehemently, but the speedster only blinked.

“You can look for her when her mother comes up with the cure,” he suggested with a shrug.

“How can you be so casual about this, Barry? She’s your  _ friend _ !” the journalist reminded him.

“I’ve been alone in what felt like centuries in the Speed Force,” he countered, pointing a thumb at himself, “the thought of saving your life was the only thing that kept me sane as I internalized Savitar’s personality. So forgive me if I don’t break down over Caitlin like Cisco did just an hour ago. At least she’s a meta-human with high regenerative abilities and ice powers. She'll be just fine. Saving _you_ was my priority.”

“By making me live in fear for months? That’s what you call  _ saving _ ?” Iris asked, incredulous.

“If I had changed the timeline, I would’ve returned here blindly,” the asserted. “Maybe someone else would’ve been targeting you, or you would’ve died in a car accident. I could only help you if I knew exactly what was going to happen!”

It made sense, truly it did, but Iris couldn’t feel any better for it.

The things he’d done,  _ said _ to her and to the team, none of them felt faked.

“When you spoke through Julian at S.T.A.R. Labs,” she started hesitantly, “saying that you were the future Flash, that you’d take back from Barry everything he’d taken away from you—”

“It’s easy to tell lies when you embed them with truth,” the time remnant said with a wry smile. “I resent future Barry for forbidding me to go back in time, for abandoning me when I returned from the Speed Force the first time around. It was easy to project those feelings onto this Barry. They look the same, with their unmarked face, no sign to show how broken they are, unlike me.”

“Barry’s not broken,” Iris objected, and startled when her fiancé’s future version laughed.

“Oh, Iris,” he said softly, “I missed you so much. Your unwavering faith in me—well, in  _ him _ , I suppose—and your belief that I’d always win… In this case you were right, yet again. I beat fate. You’re alive. I figured out a way to save you.”

“I didn’t ask for this!” she reminded him, half-angry half-distressed. “I told you,  _ begged _ you to find a way without losing yourself, yet you impersonated the very man who murdered me the first time around? How is this not losing yourself?”

“I’m back now,” he promised as he extended his arms downward, inviting her to look closely. “The moment my watch beeped, I shed the persona of Savitar.”

“So what, you’re washing your hands of all your crimes too, is that it?” the reporter questioned. “All the lives you’ve ruined, all the people you hurt, they’re not your concern anymore now that you don’t have to play the villain?”

“I didn’t force them to do my bidding, did I?” he talked back. “Made an empty threat now and then, but that was it. None of Savitar’s worshippers or the metas from Flashpoint had to become villains. They were the one who chose what to do with their powers themselves.”

“You manipulated them through the philosopher’s stone!” Iris objected. “Just like you did Julian and Wally!”

“Yes, and where are Julian and Wally now?” he asked her pointedly. “They’re active members of Team Flash. Wally’s the superhero he was always meant to be, though he almost ruined everything when he started training to outrun me. And Julian’s been helping too! There’s no doubt that Killer Frost would have emerged much earlier without him by Caitlin’s side. Make sure to bring him along when you go looking for her.”

Iris blinked at the time remnant’s use of pronouns.

‘When  _ you _ go looking for her.’

“You should come too,” she suggested on a whim, her widening eyes mirroring Barry’s time remnant. “To atone for leading her astray. I’m grateful that you saved my life, Barry, but it’s not enough. You have a lot to make up for.”

Silence settled between them as he stared at her strangely.

“I thought you’d hate me,” he confessed quietly, “that you wouldn’t be able to even look at me once I told you the truth. If you even believed me in the first place.”

“I’ll always believe you, Barry,” Iris said softly. “I am disappointed in the path you took to save me,” she admitted as she finally gave into the urge to go to his side, though she forced her feet to walk slowly, “but you saved me, Barry. You gave me a future. I’d never thank you enough for that.”

As soon as he was within reach she extended her left hand towards his face, and at first he shied away from her touch, wincing quietly.

“It’s okay,” she told him gently, and warmth bloomed in her chest at seeing his whole body relax at the sound of her voice.

He closed his eyes and sighed when she rubbed her fingers against his raised scars.

“Does it still hurt?” she asked quietly as she stepped into his space, and revelled in the friction his damaged skin created against her palm as he shook his head slowly.

“Just phantom pain when I wake up from nightmares,” he admitted in a whisper.

Iris couldn’t help taking another step and dropping her left hand from his face so she could wrap both arms around his waist.

He returned the hug right away, engulfed her in his warmth, and right then Iris felt stupid for doubting that this Barry, that  _ any _ version of Barry Allen could ever wish her harm.

Hadn’t Barry told her, the day Wally had forced him to reveal why he’d proposed that first time?

_ I love you more than anything, that part’s never changed, it never will. _

“I’m sorry that you had to go through all that pain for me,” she apologized quietly, tears staining his shirt.

“I’d do anything for you Iris,  _ anything _ ,” he told her yet again, “you deserve to live a long life, to use your light to illuminate other people’s path. You’re my clarity, always have been. I couldn’t have lasted so long in the Speed Force without you. I love you so much.”

Iris wouldn’t remember if she’d said the words back, but she remembered being the one initiating their kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments always appreciated!


End file.
